Kashmir needs democracy not Guv’s rule: Dulat

Srinagar, Jan 13: Former RAW chief and expert on Kashmir affairs, A S Dulat Sunday said holding Assembly and parliament polls separately can be a big blunder. He said Kashmir at this crucial point of junction needs democracy and not Governors or Presidents rule.

“These elections should be held together and not separately. This is my opinion,” Dulat told Kashmir News Service (KNS) over phone from New Delhi.

He said until today we could not hold Anantnag by-polls.”Iss Duran aap elections karwadey tou karwadey. Also Governor’s rule should never extend beyond six months in any case. If you can’t hold polls together, it will then take you two more years to conduct Assembly polls,” he added.

“Kashmir at this moment needs democracy more than anything else. Moderates, mainstream people to take things in right direction,” he said.
“We had Governor’s rule for six years once upon a time. What did that yield us. Nothing!” he said.

Even, former chief minister Omar Abdullah had said that assembly polls should be held “as soon as possible” in Jammu and Kashmir to put in place an elected government to run affairs of the state, which is under the President’s rule.

The National Conference (NC) vice-president had also took a dig at some politicians and bureaucrats for “creating hurdles” in holding of elections of assembly jointly with parliament elections in the state.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)